CALMING THE WINDS OF LIFE

              A Sermon by Rev. Brian W. Keith

"Now when the evening came, the boat was in the middle of
the sea.... Then [the Lord] saw them straining at rowing,
for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of
the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would
have passed them by. But...they cried out.... And
immediately He...said to them, 'Be of good cheer! It is I;
do not be afraid.' Then He went up into the boat to them and
the wind ceased" (Mark 6:47-51).

     The disciples had been with the Lord for several months
when this incident occurred. They had left all to follow
Him. They had heard Him teach wonderful new ideas. They had
seen Him heal the blind and the crippled. And they had seen
Him rejected by His own and warmly received by the
multitudes.
     Most recently the Lord had taken them to rest in a
wilderness area in the northern plains above the Sea of
Galilee. But the Lord's fame had so spread that thousands
had run to the place. Showing no resentment because His
solitude was disturbed, the Lord taught the multitudes.
Then, when the hour was late, He miraculously fed the five
thousand with five loaves and two fish.
     Seeing that He could not escape the needs of the
people, the Lord determined to return to the more heavily
populated area on the western shores of Galilee. At dusk He
sent the disciples ahead in the boat, while he spent some
time in prayer on the nearby mountains.
     But the disciples ran into a fierce wind, and the
relatively short trip dragged on and on. In the depths of
night they were only about halfway there, apparently making
no headway. Then in fourth watch, some time between three
a.m. and sunrise, they saw the Lord walking on the water. In
the midst of their struggling with the oars and the
darkness, the Lord was hard to see, and seemed like a ghost
to them. In distress they cried out to HIm and He said, "Be
of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." Then when He got
into the boat the wind ceased, the waves died out, and they
were amazed as they finished their journey.
     How like the Lord to apparently abandon the disciples
only to come and rescue them when it seemed the darkest! But
this was not an unusual trait of the Lord's. For everything
He said and everything He did was Divine. In this story is a
description of one aspect of the spiritual journey we are
all engaged in.
     Often we feel fed by the Lord. Like the disciples and
multitudes we have listened to His teachings; we have been
enlightened and excited by the vision of heaven that He
gives. And we have then been fed with bread and fishes--we
have tasted something of good that the Lord offers us.
Perhaps it is a young man who sees the beauty of an eternal
concept in marriage and feels a growing closeness to someone
special. Or perhaps it is an older woman recognizing that
her use extends far beyond her raised children and begins to
find new ways to nurture those around her. In thousands of
cases there is the delight in hearing the Lord's words, and
joy in sensing the good can come.
     Then what happens? The Lord made His disciples get into
the boat for a journey. So the Lord places us in a vessel
and sets us on our way. What we have learned carries us upon
the seas of this natural life. For we are not meant to
remain in wilderness. Life's journey is to leave deserted
places behind and move toward where there are people, where
the vision of truth we have received can be fully realized.
     And where is the Lord at this time? He seems to be at a
distance, on a mountain praying. This is the reality we
confront. As we enter into our daily routines, meeting all
the demands the home and work-place make upon us, it is hard
to see the Lord's immediate presence. Where is the Lord as
we are making out a shopping list? Where is the Lord when a
supervisor is unjustly berating us for a problem at work?
More importantly, where is the Lord as we attempt to sort
out the shades of grey in moral and ethical questions we
face?
     In one sense the Lord does seem to be absent, off on a
mountain. But He is there because that is the place we have
allotted Him. Yes, we might attend a formal worship service
from time to time, but we have probably heard His name
profaned much more frequently than we have given serious
thought to who He is and our relationship with Him. There is
some worship in our lives, but its connection with daily
life is, at best, tenuous.
     And what is the nature of our lives? The disciples had
found that what may have seemed like a short trip to the
other side was now an arduous journey. It was the dark of
the night. They were in the middle of the sea. They had been
straining for hours, rowing against the wind, but were
apparently making little headway.
     Our natural lives can take on this appearance. The
principles we embraced in younger years may look tarnished
with age. The hopes and dreams, the angelic ideals we may
have thought were nearly within grasp, now appear far off,
if we can see them at all. We are in darkness. Imagine how
lost the disciples must have felt--at sea with no sense of
how far they had come or how far they had to go. We can be
equally confused, not knowing what to think. Our lives can
seem endless routines or one crisis followed by another,
without any sense of accomplishment, without any end in
sight. Although we have gotten somewhere, seen by their
being in the middle of the sea, we have a hard time
recognizing it. Yes, we have made progress, but it is unseen
and unappreciated.
     And what is more, all our efforts are like rowing
against a strong wind. This mighty wind is the power which
false ideas have upon us. Their force distorts our thinking,
apparently rendering us motionless. One example of this is
the erroneous concept that life in this world is meant to be
fair. This idea perhaps has been inseminated by our culture,
and we often assume that there should be an immediate reward
for good and punishment for evil. This is always the case in
the long run, but we may want it in the here and now.
     So how, then, do we react when we see a child losing
his innocence to gangs or drugs? Or a young mother afflicted
with a serious illness? Or a vicious criminal walk free? We
may rail at God, angered by His lack of compassion, by His
inability to help. We may reject Him and wander in the mazes
of materialism, nihilism, or some other "ism." Why? Because
strong winds gave us false expectations, they deceived us
into thinking that this world is all, or at least much more
important than it really is in the grand scope of existence.
     But for those who keep on struggling, the Lord can walk
upon the waters. Even in the darkest times of our lives, He
can walk by. Note that it says, "He would have passed them
by." The Lord is with us, but we may not notice it. He will
not force Himself into our lives. He stands and the door and
knocks, but does not come in until we open the door. We can
be so caught up in our own efforts, our successes and
failures, that we are not aware of Him and it seems as if He
would pass by without stopping.
     Yet, there can be occasional glimpses of His presence.
Perhaps we can see some good in the corners of our lives--
little islands of order and use. As the Lord appeared ghost-
like, dimly seen, we may think of these areas of our life as
insignificant, of little value. But it is from these that
our eyes can be opened and the Lord is recognized.
     The disciples were troubled by this, and so are we as
we sense an inner resistance to greeting Him. We hold back,
enmeshed in our struggles. We think we are all alone without
anyone to help or care, or we think that what minimal good
we have is not worth anything.
     But the disciples did cry out to HIm, and He
immediately spoke to them. How do we cry out to the Lord? In
many ways. We can overcome our troubles by crying out to the
Lord when we at last recognize that we do need help, that
our feeble attempts to make ourselves happy cannot succeed
for long, or that our concentrated efforts to ignore any
spiritual reality lead nowhere. We cry out to Him when, in
grief over the loss of something we know to be valuable, we
are at last willing to look at the world from His
perspective. We also cry out to Him when in humility we
acknowledge we need His guidance to believe, to have a
purpose in existing.
     However we cry out to Him, He immediately answers. He
speaks to us when we pick up His Word and make the effort to
receive His teachings. He speaks to us when we listen to
others who care. He speaks to us by directing our attention
beyond the things of this world. And He speaks to us by
leading our affections away from our own worries to more
important things.
     And what is His message? "Be of good cheer! It is I; do
not be afraid." Even as we are rowing against the wind He
encourages us to set aside our fears, trust in His presence,
and be of good cheer. For with the Lord all things are
possible.
     And when there is that trust, that confidence, then He
can get into our boats and still the wind. As our sight of
His ways clear, as we continue rowing in our boats, then He
can join us fully. He is with us as we journey, taking His
truth and gradually having it penetrate our minds and our
way of life. This stills the wind for the confusions recede.
Distorted thinking is set aside. It no longer halts our
progress; it no longer prevents us from having a calm enter
our lives.
     This does not change the fact that we have to keep
rowing. The disciples were only halfway there. There will
always be hellish currents to contend with--the weariness of
apathy and the hidden rocks of others' evils. But with the
Lord's direction, with a faithfulness to seeking His truth
and following His way, the rowing can move us forward.
     Then we are amazed and marvel at the Lord's doings. We
see His power and His love. We are awe-struck by it, knowing
that without HIm we can do nothing.
     We can be rescued from fighting the winds at sea each
day, each week, and each year. It does not happen once or
twice and then all is well. We regularly lose our way and
need to see the Lord walking with us. If we will cry out to
Him when we are making no headway, His words will guide us,
His presence will comfort us. It will not miraculously
remove all difficulties from our lives. But it will give us
the vision and strength to continue rowing. It will bring us
good cheer, for we will see that the Lord is indeed with us
and we have nothing to fear. Amen.

Lessons: Mark 6:30-52, AE 514:21

Preached in Glenview April 9, 1989

Apocalypse Explained 514:21

     Respecting the Lord's walking on the sea to the boat in
which the disciples were, it is said in the gospels: "The
boat containing the Lord's disciples was in the midst of the
sea, tossed by the wind. In the fourth watch of the night
Jesus came unto them, walking on the sea. And Peter said,Bid
me come unto Thee upon the waters. And He said, Come.
Therefore Peter, going down, walked upon the water to come
to Jesus. But beginning to sink, he was afraid. Jesus,
stretching forth His hand, took hold of him and said, O man
of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they
were come into the boat, the wind ceased. And they that were
in the boat worshiped Him saying, Of a truth Thou art the
Son of God" (Matt 14:24-33; Mark 6:48-52).
     And again: "When evening came, His disciples went down
unto the sea; and when they had entered into a boat, they
went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, but
Jesus was not come to them. And the sea was moved by a great
wind that blew. When they had gone on about twenty-five or
thirty stadia, they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and
drawing nigh unto the boat, and they were afraid. But He
said, It is I; be not afraid. Then they were willing to
receive Jesus into the boat; and immediately the boat was at
the land whither they were going" (John 6:16-21, seq.).
     Here too the particulars signify Divine spiritual
things, which nevertheless do not appear in the letter: as
the sea, the Lord's walking upon it, the fourth watch in
which He came to the disciples, and the ship, His entering
into it, and from it restraining the wind and the waves of
the sea, and other things besides. But there is no need
singly to explain here the spiritual things signified; let
it be said only that the "sea" signifies the ultimate of
heaven and the church, since there are seas in the outmost
borders of the heavens; the Lord's walking upon the sea
signifies the Lord's presence and His influx even into
these, and consequent life from the Divine to those who are
in the ultimates of heaven; their life from the Divine was
represented by the Lord's walking upon the sea; and their
obscure and wavering faith was represented by Peter's
walking upon the sea and beginning to sink, but being saved
when the Lord took hold of him, "to walk" signifying in the
Word to live. This was done "in the fourth watch" to signify
the first state of the church, when it is daybreak and
morning is at hand, for then good begins to act through
truth, and then the Lord comes; that the sea in the
meanwhile was moved by the wind, and that the Lord
restrained it, signifies the natural state of life that
precedes, which is an unpeaceful and as it were tempestuous
state; but with the state that is nearest to morning, which
is then present in the good of love, there comes
tranquillity of mind.